In 2023, West Coast companies Upside Foods and Good Meat were cleared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to begin selling their lab-grown meat nationwide. This approval was a groundbreaking moment in history for scientific advancement and the future of animal welfare.
Lab-grown meat is produced by collecting cell tissue from a living animal and then bathing the cells in nutrients to grow them into muscle tissue. No animals are slaughtered in this process. Each year, a low-end estimate of 1.2 trillion land animals and fish are slaughtered for consumption. Lab-grown meat holds the potential to save a large number of animals per year with its slaughter-free process.
However, lab-grown meat is not yet available in retail. As it stands, lab-grown meat has not achieved a viable production rate to be sold in stores nationwide. Further innovation is still necessary to increase production speeds and reduce manufacturing costs for the product to succeed.
Despite this, state policymakers are taking swift action to pass legislation that bans its production and sale before it is made available on store shelves. To complicate matters for lab-grown meat producers, policymakers enforcing the bans are backed by powerful meat industry lobbyists, including Tyson Foods and JBS USA.
The development and sale of lab-grown meat are now banned in 7 states: Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, Indiana, Texas, and Nebraska. Several more states are also considering bans, and many states will likely continue to join the anti-lab-grown meat coalition before the end of the year.
Policymakers pushing for bans have argued that, without proper labelling, the product is deceptive to consumers. Yet, several states have already passed legislation for transparent labelling of mock meats in stores. Additionally, the USDA proposed the FAIR Labels Act of 2024, which, if passed, would federally require mock meat companies to clearly label their products as “imitation” or “lab-grown.”
And are the policymakers enforcing bans truly concerned for consumers? Nebraska’s recent lab-grown meat ban, approved by Governor Jim Pillen (R), raises many questions. Pillen founded Pillen Family Farms, which is currently the largest pork producer in Nebraska. He also helped found Wholestone Farms, the second-largest pork producer in the country. During his 2022 election campaign, he also received $50,000 from Smithfield Foods, the nation’s largest pork producer, in addition to donations from several other meat industry giants.
Pillen has an extensive history in livestock production. And lab-grown meat bans cut their competitors out of the market. They sabotage the potential success of lab-grown meat before it has the opportunity to reach a commercial breakthrough.
Dan Morgan, a Nebraskan cattle rancher, recognized this authoritarian theme when the state-wide ban was being proposed and spoke out against it before the governor signed it into law. Morgan wants the economic freedom to compete with lab-grown products. If cattle ranchers want to prove that traditional farming is superior, they should not have to hide behind federal protections to do so.
The recent bans take away the people’s freedoms to choose innovative, slaughter-free meat products.
Another drawback is inflation. When government regulation is used to decrease competition in the food industry, it drives price inflation, leading to higher rates of food insecurity among low-income Americans.
Lab-grown meat bans were never about protecting the people; rather, they represent an authoritarian overreach to control what is on people’s plates and decrease consumer choice. This will become another example of protectionism harming the economy, the people it is meant to serve and the animals who suffer.
Isaac DeBlasio is a Junior Fellow at the Wilberforce Institute.
